[1]RTA: debate over caseload mix
There could be “carnage” among personal injury (PI) firms this year as the full impact of the Jackson reforms and portal fee cuts finally hits home, lawyers have predicted.
A roundtable event hosted by marketing collective First4Lawyers heard that the work firms piled up ahead of the changes in 2013 had taken longer to conclude than expected.
Derrick Smethurst, head of PI at north-west firm Russell & Russell, said that having expected pre-Jackson work to last 12-18 months, they are still working through pre-Jackson cases and indeed are still receiving instructions where the accident date predates 31 July 2013, meaning the fees are dealt with under the previous portal regime.
It was the same story for Andrew Simcott, head of business development at Merseyside firm Michael W Halsall, but he added: “Historic WIP will not last for ever and the vast majority will probably be depleted within the next 12 months, so it is essential that firms are able to make their diversification strategies work within in the next 12-18 months in order to avoid failure.”
“The carnage is yet to happen,” said Ian Pryer, founder of York firm Pryers Solicitors. “A lot of people had thought that the WIP would have disappeared more quickly.” He suggested that fee-earners in some firms may have been deliberately slower in turning around cases than they would otherwise have done out of fear of what would happen after.
“I think it will be two years on from Jackson that firms start falling off, unless their business models have moved on,” Mr Pryer predicted.
There was considerable debate about the mix of a PI practice between RTA cases and other types of PI. Simon Shaw, partner at Liverpool firm SGI Legal, said it was a matter of balancing cash against profit. “RTAs will generate cash quicker, whereas your non-RTA work will generate a more significant profit. But you need cash to reinvest.”
Richard Powell, joint head of personal injury at Manchester firm JMW, said about 30% of his department’s caseload was RTA: “It is valuable in terms of a quick turnaround and the quick cash flow you can get from it. I am starting to hear about some firms that are now turning away EL/PL in favour of RTA because they are actually getting so tight on the finances that they prefer that fast turnaround – it’s their bailout option at the moment.”
First4Lawyers director Qamar Anwar said: “The roundtable was a valuable exercise in taking the temperature of the PI market at the moment. It helped confirm our strategy of focusing more on other areas of personal injury than RTA – around a quarter of the cases we pass on are road traffic accidents – and that we have been right to be choosy when selecting firms for our new clinical negligence panel.”